A PLAN to build homes on a village pub’s car park has been turned down by the council.

The move would have seen two three-bed homes built on the car park of the Anchor Inn, in Kempsey near Worcester.

The application by Punch Partnerships was rejected by planners at Malvern Hills District Council who said building the homes would cause “unacceptable harm” to the appearance of a protected part of the village.

Kempsey Parish Council was against building the two new homes saying the pair of buildings would not fit in with the neighbouring ‘larger’ homes – particularly the listed Georgian-era Colne House which sits next to the village pub’s car park.

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A plan to build a shop in the same place was rejected by the council in 2019.

The council’s planners were on the same page and said the homes would be “out of character” against the ‘large plots’ and ‘large, detached houses’ in the village’s Main Road and building ‘smaller houses in very small plots’ would be “detrimental” to the Anchor Inn and the listed Colne House.

A total of ten people had earlier objected to the plan saying a pub car park was not a suitable site for housing.

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Other objectors said the pub would desperately need as much space as possible due to several planned developments throughout the village which total hundreds of new homes.

Lantar Developments wants to build more than 30 homes off Post Office Lane in Kempsey, and has turned to the government’s planning inspectors, who have the power to overrule the district council, in a bid to get its plan approved.

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MHDC turned down the plan last year saying the developer should not be allowed to ‘encroach’ on the countryside.

More than 80 objections were raised against the plan by residents in Kempsey who said the move was “unsustainable” given how overstretched schools and GP surgeries already were in the village.

An application to build 150 homes off the A38 on the southern edge of Kempsey was put forward last year alongside another plan to build 57 homes on fields off Brookend Lane by developer Richborough Estates.